President's
Greeting
by
Gregg Bartle
El
Nino
Or
How
NASU Copes with Climate Change
As 1998 begins we find a new phenomenon joining the list of available explanations for the unexpected - el Nino. This pesky piece of recurrent meteorological ephemera is being blamed for everything from weather that is too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry, on to why the 49'ers are having such a terrible season and how it is that bitter chocolate is just a bit too bitterthese days.We may be tempted to join the bandwagon and find a changeable climate to bethe root of the day to day problems we face coping with an uncertain FinancialAid environment, but it probably won't work. Our difficulties are our own,and our solutions should be our own as well.As we deal with the evolving difficulties of a millennial software upgrade, along with an unstable Direct Lending milieu, and the perpetual problems of a new year of Need Analysis & Packaging, we do well to remember, even with problems falling like rain, that the best solutions may be closest at hand. I want to encourage everyone to think of NASU as a reservoir of possible solutions. It's all in how well we use the group to help manage the changes inevitably ahead. Demonstrating just how prepared NASU is for change, the Board has changed it's mind about where to hold the 1998 Summer Conference! We will not be in Colorado again, but will instead convene in Seattle, Washington, at the downtown Crowne Plaza Hotel. This will be the first time NASU has met anywhere on the West Coast, and so may present a bit of a traveling challenge to some of our more Easterly members, but you may all rest assured that the Board intends to make this a conference rewarding for its professional content as well as refreshing in its environment. Elsewhere in this newsletter, you will find more details from President-elect and Conference Committee Chairperson, Peter Bartow, about the conference and how YOU can participate and share in making this one of the best I hope that through NASU activities like the NASU-L mailing list, the Spring satellite conference and our Summer gathering, we all learn and reaffirm the lesson that common problems are best addressed by a common resolve and united actions. In that spirit I look forward to working with all of our membership in the coming year. (In the next issue: I describe how the yogic chakra system explains NASU's organizational structure. Look for it.)
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NASU
Summer Conference 1998
by
Peter Bartow
As many of you have heard, the summer conference has been moved from Colorado Springs to Seattle Washington. While researching Colorado Springs as a site we found several things which we felt made it a less than optimal site for our conference. It became apparent to us that the people attending the conference would need cars to get around. One of the things we have always tried to do is to make sure that there are restaurants and after hours activities within walking distance or bus/shuttle distance of the hotel. In Colorado Springs this is not the case. We would rather not add car rental to the cost of attendance. Also, the choices of a suitable hotel for the conference are limited by the amount of conference space at the hotels in the area. We then considered Boulder Colorado. Boulder also is limited in facilities and activities. The conference will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Seattle Washington July 22-26, 1998. There are several very good hotels to choose from within a few blocks of the Crowne Plaza. We chose the Crowne Plaza primarily because of cost. This is a list of POSSIBLE session topics. We need your feedback on which of these (if any) you would like to see presented at the conference. Also, if presenters for these topics. Please read the list and decide which are your top 15 preferences. E-mail your comments to pbartow@miami.edu.
Possible topics:
1.
P30--incremental/decremental/modify/replacement modes &
modeling
2.
Keying macros in visual basic
3.
U41 (Specifically requested on survey)
4.
NSLDS--fixing errors/consolidated loans/subsequent transaction
tracking
5.
Mid-year FAT requests
6.
Bar coding on loan notes
7.
Year 2000 conversion
8.
Financial Aid on the Web
9.
Award letter elimination methods
10.
EMail correspondence
11.
Voice response systems (acceptance of awards via touch-tone)
12.
Imaging
13.
IDMS data locking
14.
Direct lending
15.
Common line/FFELP/alternative loan processing
16.
FACTS institutionally designed modules
17.
Lifetime loan limits
18.
Decentralized services/one-stop shopping in the aid office
19.
TADD, the magic of...
20.
IQAP--quality assurance program
21.
Special groups: Ohio group; EDEN-OA
22.
Performance issues---Baby audit; turning the BIO hits off
in U41
23.
Alternatives to compliance module
24.
FERPA--privacy tracking issues
25.
NCAA/SAM tie-ins
26.
SAP tracking
27.
Health Professions
28.
Project management
29.
Re-engineering offices
30.
Employee retention
31.
Hope Scholarship
32.
Freshman Scholarship awarding
33.
New memorandum module
34.
Explaining federal comment/reject code processing
Feedback is welcomed and appreciated. This is your conference. It needs to be productive for your organization/ institution. It needs to be productive for you personally and professionally.
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A
Self Profile of Pete Bartow
NASU
President-Elect
Those of you who were old enough to appreciate it in 1977 and 1978, may have seen me on television. I marched in the 77 and 78 Rose Bowl Parades as part of the Marine Corps band. At the time I was stationed in Twenty-Nine Palms California. Twenty-Nine Palms is located 60 miles from Palm Springs California and four hours from Las Vegas. I was 19 years old and I had a blast. I played the clarinet, saxophone and occasionally piano. The last time I tried to play clarinet was when my son was one or two years old. He was terrified and cried like crazy. So, I think he will be a music critic someday.
I came to the University of Miami in 1981, starting as a computer operator. At the time the University was converting from a Univac mainframe to an IBM. I was going to community college attempting to get my degrees in computer science and business data processing. This all worked out rather well as I graduated just in time to get married and start my new job as a computer programmer. My first programming assignment was on the Financial Aid system. We had at that time the VSAM / CICS version of SAM. After two years as a programmer I moved over into the database area. I was a database analyst on our General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Human Resources systems. Subsequent to that I was given the opportunity to be the project manager on the new Financial Aid system project. As you can see we stayed with Sigma as our Financial Aid systems provider. Currently I am pursuing my master's degree in business. After that I hope to go back and get a bachelor's degree in engineering. The engineering degree is a dream of mine I hope to make a reality. My main hobby is boating. I love boats. Being in a place surrounded on three sides by the ocean (as Florida is) makes this a good hobby to have. As I am writing this I am recalling last night's trip on my boat. We went out at night trying to catch shrimp. We are having a very good year for shrimp here in Miami. Last night was not such a good night for us. We caught one shrimp. Yes, one shrimp. Apparently liking boats does not make you a fisherman. But it is an enjoyable hobby. And, one my whole family can participate in. I have been going to Sigma conferences for many years. My University has saved many millions of dollars because of ideas we brought back from past conferences. Cheryl Roy's presentation on automated review of application records CSS/DOE gave us the impetus to write our own here at the UM. Laura's presentation of U41 processing cut hours and hours of our batch processing window. I have always been impressed by the people who I meet there. I hope that all of find your participation in NASU as rewarding personally and professionally as I and my university have.
(Pete Bartow, is a project manager in the Office of Information Technology at The University of Miami.)
*****************************************************************************
Membership
Committee Report
by
DeWayne Bowie
Happy New Year to all NASU members from the membership committee! We would like to welcome to the membership two new institutions that are users of the EDEN-OA software. They are The University of Wisconsin Centers and Fitchburg State College. You will be hearing more in the very near future about EDEN-OA.
The 1997-98 Membership Directories were mailed on December 22 to the voting representative of each institution that paid 1997 membership dues. If you did not receive your copy of the directory and your institution has paid its 1997 printed sufficient copies for all members, whether or not dues had been paid. As I receive documentation from Andy Sprague that dues have been paid, I will mail the directories to your institution's voting rep. If there is any incorrect information in the directory, please contact me via e-mail at dkb2461@mvs.usl.edu so that I can update the membership database.
I hope all of you had a "problem-free" Spring 1998 registration... wouldn't that be nice! I look forward to seeing all of you this summer in Seattle, Washington. Until next time, Take Care!
***************************************************
*
*
* Corrections to 1997-98 NASU Directory *
* *
***************************************************
Page 4 - Andy Sprague's E-Mail address should be asprague@sfr.buffalo.edu
Page 4 & 5 - Laura Emch's E-Mail address should be lemch@radar.bgsu.edu
Pat Woolley's E-Mail address should be pat.woolley@emich.edu
Page 13 - Cheryl Roy's address & FAX number should be 196 Auditorium Road,
U-138
FAX: 860-486-5744
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EMail
and Nominations Committee Reports<
by
Val Meyers
I have noticed that there have been a number of rejected messages on the NASU-L listserv in the last few weeks. Since I realize that some folks may not realize that they are not getting messages, I wanted to remind you all that if you have not gotten messages from NASU-L in the last few weeks, please feel free to EMail me at meyersv@pilot.msu.edu or ofa82@msu.edu.
* * * * * * *
As the chair of the Nominations Committee, I would like to invite you to consider becoming a member of the NASU Board of Directors, or to nominate a friend or co-worker whom you believe would do a great job for us. The only requirement is that prospective board members be employed by a NASU member institution.
In the 1998 election, we will be looking for candidates for the following offices:
Board Member at Large - 3 positions, 2-year terms
Secretary - 1 position, 1-year term
Treasurer - 1 position, 2-year term
President-Elect - 1 position, 3-year term
Please contact me if you are interested.
*******************************************************************************
QUALITY
ASSURANCE'S SUCCESSES AND SHORTCOMINGS
by
Phyllis Sturm
We want to thank all of the kind-hearted people who volunteered to Beta test the 98-99 software for the user community in general. I regret the response to the QA Committee call for volunteers, for the January pilgimage to Denver, did not receive a more overwhelming number of responses. Of the select group of volunteers, Sigma has elected to sponsor only people whose name starts with the letter "P" this year, for their all expense paid trip to Sigma Headquarters.
The
three (3) independent beta testers will be:
Pat
Brown, Programmer at Colorado State University, (1 hour away),
IDMS
Peggy
Gantz, Senior Financial Aid Officer, University of Michigan,
3
time veteran beta tester, Direct Lending, IMS IBSDBDC
Pam
Shaw, Aid Officer at Michigan State, Direct Lending,
IDMS,
Electronic Corrections
***************************************************************************
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS !!
Many thanks to the University of Connecticut Computer Center for providing copying services and postage for the NASU News! Our thanks also go out to the University of Southwestern Louisiana for funding the costs fo producting and mailing the 1997-98 NASU Directory!
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1997-98
NASU Executive Board *<
PRESIDENT
Gregg
M. Bartle
Programmer
Analyst
550
Banway Building #3816
University
of California - Berkeley
Berkeley,
CA 94720-3816
(510)
643-8955
GBARTLE@uclink.berkeley.edu
PAST
PRESIDENT
Val
Meyers
Asst
Director/Systems & Packaging
Office
of Financial Aid
252
Student Services Building
Michigan
State University
East
Lansing, MI 48824-1113
(517)
432-6468
OFA82@msu.edu
PRESIDENT-ELECT
Peter
F. Bartow
Senior
Systems Analyst
Information
Resources
202
Ungar Building
1365
Memorial Drive
University
of Miami
Coral
Gables, FL 33146
(305)
284-6251
PBARTOW@umiamivm.ir.miami.edu
TREASURER
Andy
Sprague
Director
of Information Technology
for
Student Finances and Records
Hayes
C, 3435 Main Street
University
at Buffalo
Buffalo,
NY 14214-3016
(716)
829-2266
ASPRAGUE@sfr.buffalo.edu
SECRETARY
Laura
Leah Smith
Sr.
Technical Analyst
University
of Toledo
Office
of Student Financial Aid
2801
W. Bancroft
Toledo,
OH 42606
(419)
530-6151
SAM0003@uoft01.utoledo.edu
DELEGATES
Gerard
L. Joseph
Associate
Director
Student
Financial Aid
209
Woods Hall
8001
Natural Bridge Road
University
of Missouri-St. Louis
St.
Louis, MO 63121-4499
(314)516-6397
JERRY_JOSEPH@ccmail.umsl.edu
Cheryl
A. Roy
Senior
Programmer Analyst
University
Computer Center
196
Auditorium Road, U-138
University
of Connecticut
Storrs,
CT 06269-3138
(860)
486-1375
CROY@uconnvm.uconn.edu
Phyllis
Sturm
Senior
Programmer Analyst
Computer
Services - HAB 56-2
75
South Manheim Boulevard
State
University of NY-New Paltz
New
Paltz, NY 12561-2499
(914)
257-3136
STURM@npvm.newpaltz.edu
DeWayne
Bowie
Associate
Director Financial Aid
The
Univ of Southwestern LA
USL
Box 41206
Lafayette,
LA 70504
(318)
482-5893
DKB2461@mvs.usl.edu
Laura
Emch
Associate
Director
Student
Financial Aid
231
Administration Building
Bowling
Green State University
Bowling
Green, OH 43403-0145
(419)
372-2651
lemch@radar.bgsu.edu
Pat
Woolley
SAM
Specialist
Eastern
Michigan University
403
Pierce Hall
Ypsilanti,
MI 48197
(313)
487-0204
pat.woolley@emich.edu
BOARD MEMBER (ex-officio)
Randy
Timmons
President
& CEO
Sigma
Systems, Inc
650
S. Cherry St., Suite 1035
Denver,
Colorado 80222
RTIMMONS@sigma1.com